Honestly its us players. No matter what we get, its not what we want. We don't give the Developers any room. Within ten minutes of release we declare everything DoA and follow the crowd to quitsville. We're quick to blame the faceless "Them" that we imagine hides behind the curtain and steers each game down certain paths.
In the end we're to blame. We're responsible for our own fun and I've played many games that were "dead" according to the players that were, in fact, fun games if you let them be what they were designed to be instead of wishing they were "X, Y or Z" game.
You've got to admit that we geeks are a tough and opinionated audience.
Many a small thing has been made large by the right kind of advertising.
The irony that MMOs today are single player games with an optional multiplayer dimension.
Secondly, difficulty. Now, granted, this is part of the 'single player' issue, but I hark from the Verant style EQ where a single monster, even if you were a higher level, could very well demolish you in a fight. What did this require? Teamwork. As the idea progresses, less and less is actual teamwork required nowadays in the day-to-day experience of many MMOs.
Thirdly, character development. I want to play a character the way I want to. Old school UO is a good example of this done well (although, I'd prefer no cap but simply the skills you don't use will wane overtime).
Meaningful death experiences. In many modern MMOs, you get a little slap on the hand for dying. I'm not sure which game handles this the best, but this type of feeling causes me to play games with Hardcore modes; it makes every once trivial choice now very, very important.
Freedom. I would like several options where I'd like to strengthen my character, and I don't want to be tied down to a string of quests to hold my hand through new terrain. Let me figure out the challenges you've spent years designing without throwing it in my face.
/rant
I agree with you , old MMORPG may be crap with many wrong design decision ,
but they have many things that make them true MMO and good RPG , things that nowadays MMORPG lacked.
I generally agree with you. Make an interesting world that I can get immersed in. I can be very forgiving of balance issues, lack of features, and general game issues if I get immersed in the world.
My biggest complain is the difficulty, most MMOs now have at least 90% very easy content. I rarely get challenged before getting a bit into the endgame anymore which means I have to play a months tutorial to get to the interesting stuff. I don't mean that all MMOs should be hard but a few could at least be challenging.
My second largest complaint would be that the games have lost contact with the pen and paper roots, the early MMOs were made by P&P players and tried to recapture some of that experience but today that is all lost which is sad because there is still so much MMOs can learn from those games.
Honestly its us players. No matter what we get, its not what we want. We don't give the Developers any room. Within ten minutes of release we declare everything DoA and follow the crowd to quitsville. We're quick to blame the faceless "Them" that we imagine hides behind the curtain and steers each game down certain paths.
In the end we're to blame. We're responsible for our own fun and I've played many games that were "dead" according to the players that were, in fact, fun games if you let them be what they were designed to be instead of wishing they were "X, Y or Z" game.
You've got to admit that we geeks are a tough and opinionated audience.
As a "culture", we gamers tend to not really know what the hell we want. Sure as individuals we have our personal wishlists for mmos, but as a community on the whole we tend to piss and moan about everything.
We rip on games for being the same. When someone tries to do something different, we rip on them for not following the formula. We want B2P, but don't want a reason to purchase stuff in a cash shop. We hate grinding, but we also whine when we accomplish goals too quickly. Leveling takes too long, leveling is too short. We want endgame, but we don't want an endless gear grind, yet we want some mythical progression that doesn't involve gearing to be more powerful (options are limited).
It's no wonder developers can't seem to make any game "right", because we want everything and nothing all at the same time. Anyone wanting to make a mmo needs to have their head checked, because dealing with such a bi-polar community is pure and utter insanity.
Honestly, if anyone wants to enjoy a game anymore, the number 1 rule is to avoid any and all forums from said game.
There seems to be a few general themes here. Gamers want more freedom, less linear questing, and the tight knit communities of old. This is not a crazy pie in the sky list by any means.
It's good to see so many gamers are passionate about the genre, it's about time the devs and the investors start listening.
I think having more freedom is essential in an MMO for me and sadly, I've lost that sense of wonder and freedom in most MMOs. Perhaps the shine has worn off for me long ago but I'm seeking a really open sandbox type of game where I can explore, craft until my fingers bleed, own my own little house somewhere, farm, fish, collect, work on a list of achievements, etc. Having played Asheron's Call as my first MMO, I miss that huge land mass where each play session was an adventure. My husband and I would pick a direction and head out to explore and mob hunt. And of course look for those precious SIK keys! I remember working for months acquiring the necessary components for my Greater Shadow Armor. When I finally put it together, what a great feeling of accomplishment. I also miss our tight knit community. Our guild would do so much together and it seemed like a little family to me. Asheron's Call could be a grindy game since the level cap was so high. However, we wasted many hours grinding and socializing. Heard the same thing about EQ.
Several games have really pulled me in over the years but I find that each title gives me less and less wonder. Everyone seems to be doing their own quest chains and at times, there is very little stop to smell the roses. Or just talk. Now if I get into a queue to do a dungeon, people complete the objective and poof....they leave. Some other games are worse with speed runs. In FFXIV:AAR, if you didn't complete your speed run in 10 minutes, you would be cussed at or insulted. Woe to you if you had not watched a YouTube video of each encounter. I believe at as gamers, folks have become much more antisocial and impatient.
Not sure if anything out there will capture the spirit of the older MMOs. Sure, there were many things about the older MMO that were inconvenient and would drive today's player nuts. But they sure had their appeal and I played some of the older MMOs far longer than the newer ones.
That in just about every MMO that has been released in the last decade that I've played, you are always moving at 100 mph, and you move through the game so quickly that you never get any time to sit back and enjoy your surroundings.
Tying closely in with that, the game worlds are simply designed as a vessel for the content, rather than trying to design an interesting world. In nearly every modern MMO, there is not a square inch of game space that is not used for some quest it seems like, and this makes the worlds boring.
None of the game systems encourage socializing or grouping with strangers.
Whether its instancing, small scale scripted raiding, quest based leveling (fuck that), or cut scenes, none of them simulate a virtual world, and all the gameplay mechanics actively work to discourage people from playing together.
That, and they all treat you like you're a 3 year old with a brain tumor.
As a "culture", we gamers tend to not really know what the hell we want. Sure as individuals we have our personal wishlists for mmos, but as a community on the whole we tend to piss and moan about everything.
We rip on games for being the same. When someone tries to do something different, we rip on them for not following the formula. We want B2P, but don't want a reason to purchase stuff in a cash shop. We hate grinding, but we also whine when we accomplish goals too quickly. Leveling takes too long, leveling is too short. We want endgame, but we don't want an endless gear grind, yet we want some mythical progression that doesn't involve gearing to be more powerful (options are limited).
It's no wonder developers can't seem to make any game "right", because we want everything and nothing all at the same time. Anyone wanting to make a mmo needs to have their head checked, because dealing with such a bi-polar community is pure and utter insanity.
Honestly, if anyone wants to enjoy a game anymore, the number 1 rule is to avoid any and all forums from said game.
^ this!
I also think that MMOs should encourage group play and community, which many modern day MMOs fail to do and in fact discourage it. I remember in vanilla WoW no matter when you logged into my guilds vent server even if there were no guild events going on there would be 15 + people just hanging out in vent while they quested, did PvP, gathered etc. You don't see this often anymore, now it's log into vent for raid/guild PvP, log off the second it's over.
As a "culture", we gamers tend to not really know what the hell we want. Sure as individuals we have our personal wishlists for mmos, but as a community on the whole we tend to piss and moan about everything.
We rip on games for being the same. When someone tries to do something different, we rip on them for not following the formula. We want B2P, but don't want a reason to purchase stuff in a cash shop. We hate grinding, but we also whine when we accomplish goals too quickly. Leveling takes too long, leveling is too short. We want endgame, but we don't want an endless gear grind, yet we want some mythical progression that doesn't involve gearing to be more powerful (options are limited).
It's no wonder developers can't seem to make any game "right", because we want everything and nothing all at the same time. Anyone wanting to make a mmo needs to have their head checked, because dealing with such a bi-polar community is pure and utter insanity.
Honestly, if anyone wants to enjoy a game anymore, the number 1 rule is to avoid any and all forums from said game.
^ this!
I also think that MMOs should encourage group play and community, which many modern day MMOs fail to do and in fact discourage it. I remember in vanilla WoW no matter when you logged into my guilds vent server even if there were no guild events going on there would be 15 + people just hanging out in vent while they quested, did PvP, gathered etc. You don't see this often anymore, now it's log into vent for raid/guild PvP, log off the second it's over.
WoW was the beginning of the end for socializing. It's gameplay actively discouraged people from playing together unless they were a part of a preestablished clique or guild. WoW still had some leftover socializing from pre WoW MMOs and people getting into MMOs for the first time and wanting to talk to all the people around them. But that quickly went away, as the game forced people into raid guilds and instances and solo quest grinding.
There was almost no reason to actually group or interact with strangers in WoW, so people didn't do it. Or if a random group quest FORCED you to be with some stranger, you left that group as soon as the quest was done and never talked again.
I'm always shocked when people remember WOW as being social. But I guess that's what happens when WoW's your first MMO and you have nothing else to compare it to.
My number one complaint about most modern day MMOs is that they lack immersion. Games are so focused on features, balance, storyline, etc but most seem to lack the ability to make the gamer feel attached and immersed in their character and in the game.
I know some will say that storyline is what captures the gamer but I would disagree. Sure storyline and it's delivery are important but these things by themselves do not captivate most gamers. A good example is watching a sport verses playing a sport, which is similar to what I am talking about with most modern MMOs. When I first picked up EQ and WoW I felt like I was the story, my character was part of a ever changing digital world and my purpose there was to pwn players and NPCs alike. I have yet to play a game since TBC WoW that has made me feel like that. I was never particularly immersed in the WoW storyline but I was deeply immersed in my character and I felt as if he had a purpose inside that digital world.
When you say that "games are so focused on....storyline" you have to be kidding. The storylines are jokes. Bad stories implemented badly. Just because they are bad stories doesn't mean stories shouldn't be in MMOs.
The #1 complaint about modern MMOs that I have is their efficiency and need for more content all the time.
My number one complaint about most modern day MMOs is that they lack immersion. Games are so focused on features, balance, storyline, etc but most seem to lack the ability to make the gamer feel attached and immersed in their character and in the game.
I know some will say that storyline is what captures the gamer but I would disagree. Sure storyline and it's delivery are important but these things by themselves do not captivate most gamers. A good example is watching a sport verses playing a sport, which is similar to what I am talking about with most modern MMOs. When I first picked up EQ and WoW I felt like I was the story, my character was part of a ever changing digital world and my purpose there was to pwn players and NPCs alike. I have yet to play a game since TBC WoW that has made me feel like that. I was never particularly immersed in the WoW storyline but I was deeply immersed in my character and I felt as if he had a purpose inside that digital world.
When you say that "games are so focused on....storyline" you have to be kidding. The storylines are jokes. Bad stories implemented badly. Just because they are bad stories doesn't mean stories shouldn't be in MMOs.
The #1 complaint about modern MMOs that I have is their efficiency and need for more content all the time.
Some of the stories are beautifully written. The problem is, no matter how well written, it isn't going to be anywhere near as good as a singleplayer game.
Unless you do what SWTOR did, dedicate all your time and money into making your MMO NOT feel like an MMO. And at the end of the day, SWTOR is still just a shitty version of KOTOR.
The only stories MMOs can tell well are simulated world stories, meaning tons of players getting involved, or little things you stumble across. You can't make a singleplayer feel like the sole hero without shattering the illusion.
Scripted linear stories are NOT meant for MMOs. Everything that has tried to put them in there has just hurt the genre.
Vanilla WoW was still very much group oriented it wasn't until late TBC where they started removing a good portion of mandatory group quests.
I am not sure what games you played pre-wow but guilds/clans always have played an important part of MMOs. I played Shadowbane and if you weren't in a large PvP guild you were a moving target.
My number one complaint about most modern day MMOs is that they lack immersion. Games are so focused on features, balance, storyline, etc but most seem to lack the ability to make the gamer feel attached and immersed in their character and in the game.
I know some will say that storyline is what captures the gamer but I would disagree. Sure storyline and it's delivery are important but these things by themselves do not captivate most gamers. A good example is watching a sport verses playing a sport, which is similar to what I am talking about with most modern MMOs. When I first picked up EQ and WoW I felt like I was the story, my character was part of a ever changing digital world and my purpose there was to pwn players and NPCs alike. I have yet to play a game since TBC WoW that has made me feel like that. I was never particularly immersed in the WoW storyline but I was deeply immersed in my character and I felt as if he had a purpose inside that digital world.
When you say that "games are so focused on....storyline" you have to be kidding. The storylines are jokes. Bad stories implemented badly. Just because they are bad stories doesn't mean stories shouldn't be in MMOs.
The #1 complaint about modern MMOs that I have is their efficiency and need for more content all the time.
Some of the stories are beautifully written. The problem is, no matter how well written, it isn't going to be anywhere near as good as a singleplayer game.
Unless you do what SWTOR did, dedicate all your time and money into making your MMO NOT feel like an MMO. And at the end of the day, SWTOR is still just a shitty version of KOTOR.
The only stories MMOs can tell well are simulated world stories, meaning tons of players getting involved, or little things you stumble across. You can't make a singleplayer feel like the sole hero without shattering the illusion.
Scripted linear stories are NOT meant for MMOs. Everything that has tried to put them in there has just hurt the genre.
SWTOR had a terrible story and was a terrible MMO. That's no argument against MMOs having good stories. A story doesn't have to have you be the sole hero.
Vanilla WoW was still very much group oriented it wasn't until late TBC where they started removing a good portion of mandatory group quests.
I am not sure what games you played pre-wow but guilds/clans always have played an important part of MMOs. I played Shadowbane and if you weren't in a large PvP guild you were a moving target.
The difference is, in most pre WOW MMOs the grouping and socliazing was as much with random strangers as it was with guilds.
You didn't have forced group quests making you group with people. You had all the aspects of the game design encouraging you to group up organically.
That's why grouping died fast in WoW, because the game's design discouraged you to interact with random strangers, and every now and again FORCED you to, which just made people anti social.
My only real complaint about games today is on a payment level, as well as the idea that a game that offers 100's of hours of game-play, isn't worth the money.
I like my games to cost a flat fee, it keeps development simple, it makes the experience simple, pay or don't play. In-game life is much better IMO as it's all there to be earned. Buying something off of a cs feels like entering a cheat code to me. CS's also entice devs to place the "cool" stuff behind such paywalls, otherwise no one would pay for anything.
Other than that I have no real complaints, plenty of sandbox games in development, I've been able to find at least one game at any given time I enjoy 02 DAOC, in 03 it was SWG, after that it was AOC after that it was TOR, now it's ESO. Coming up I'll have plenty of sandbox options to find the one for me.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Some of the stories are beautifully written. The problem is, no matter how well written, it isn't going to be anywhere near as good as a singleplayer game.
Unless you do what SWTOR did, dedicate all your time and money into making your MMO NOT feel like an MMO. And at the end of the day, SWTOR is still just a shitty version of KOTOR.
The only stories MMOs can tell well are simulated world stories, meaning tons of players getting involved, or little things you stumble across. You can't make a singleplayer feel like the sole hero without shattering the illusion.
Scripted linear stories are NOT meant for MMOs. Everything that has tried to put them in there has just hurt the genre.
^ this is what I am talking about. In MMOs lore, setting, and back story are extremely important but following a linear in depth storyline (i.e. GW2, ESO, SW:ToR) makes the game feel like a single player RPG by setting people on a strict path that you follow to progress, only the mood is killed when the fate of the world rests on your shoulders and your shoulders alone to kill said creature or complete said ritual and there are 15 other people doing it next to you.
IMO what made the early MMOs so immersive was the fact that they gave you a sense of what was going on, some general direction and an awesome fantasy environment to do what you wanted in it.
Some of the stories are beautifully written. The problem is, no matter how well written, it isn't going to be anywhere near as good as a singleplayer game.
Unless you do what SWTOR did, dedicate all your time and money into making your MMO NOT feel like an MMO. And at the end of the day, SWTOR is still just a shitty version of KOTOR.
The only stories MMOs can tell well are simulated world stories, meaning tons of players getting involved, or little things you stumble across. You can't make a singleplayer feel like the sole hero without shattering the illusion.
Scripted linear stories are NOT meant for MMOs. Everything that has tried to put them in there has just hurt the genre.
^ this is what I am talking about. In MMOs lore, setting, and back story are extremely important but following a linear in depth storyline (i.e. GW2, ESO, SW:ToR) makes the game feel like a single player RPG by setting people on a strict path that you follow to progress, only the mood is killed when the fate of the world rests on your shoulders and your shoulders alone to kill said creature or complete said ritual and there are 15 other people doing it next to you.
IMO what made the early MMOs so immersive was the fact that they gave you a sense of what was going on, some general direction and an awesome fantasy environment to do what you wanted in it.
Again, just because terrible games have done stories terribly doesn't mean that stories are a bad idea for MMOs
Some of the stories are beautifully written. The problem is, no matter how well written, it isn't going to be anywhere near as good as a singleplayer game.
Unless you do what SWTOR did, dedicate all your time and money into making your MMO NOT feel like an MMO. And at the end of the day, SWTOR is still just a shitty version of KOTOR.
The only stories MMOs can tell well are simulated world stories, meaning tons of players getting involved, or little things you stumble across. You can't make a singleplayer feel like the sole hero without shattering the illusion.
Scripted linear stories are NOT meant for MMOs. Everything that has tried to put them in there has just hurt the genre.
^ this is what I am talking about. In MMOs lore, setting, and back story are extremely important but following a linear in depth storyline (i.e. GW2, ESO, SW:ToR) makes the game feel like a single player RPG by setting people on a strict path that you follow to progress, only the mood is killed when the fate of the world rests on your shoulders and your shoulders alone to kill said creature or complete said ritual and there are 15 other people doing it next to you.
IMO what made the early MMOs so immersive was the fact that they gave you a sense of what was going on, some general direction and an awesome fantasy environment to do what you wanted in it.
They only thing old MMORPGs gave you back in the day was something new and shiny. It's been years since you played the first few MMORPGS, the novelty has warned off and you basically become bitter that you can't get that feeling again. It's time to look for a new genre to get that feeling again yo and stop blaming the games. The older games was not any more immersive then any other games that came after it. It's the same tired argument with anything. Movies were better back then, music was better back then, etc etc. You name it, people will say it was better back then but in actuality, they are not. People need to just let it go and enjoy the present because alot of things in the present is just as good or better then what came before it.
^ this is what I am talking about. In MMOs lore, setting, and back story are extremely important but following a linear in depth storyline (i.e. GW2, ESO, SW:ToR) makes the game feel like a single player RPG by setting people on a strict path that you follow to progress, only the mood is killed when the fate of the world rests on your shoulders and your shoulders alone to kill said creature or complete said ritual and there are 15 other people doing it next to you.
IMO what made the early MMOs so immersive was the fact that they gave you a sense of what was going on, some general direction and an awesome fantasy environment to do what you wanted in it.
Life in game doesn't feel much different to me than it did in SWG back in 03. The only real difference is I have something to do outside of playing with friends and making my own game. Which I can still do, at least in the Themeparks I have enjoyed. That's why I enjoyed them, they stroked an immersive itch, those I named above.
Currently I find ESO to be a very Immersive experience. More so than any since SWG for me. Especially in Cyrodil, I have a blast there and I'm only level 19. Be it soloing or in a group, I find it to be very similar to what I did in SWG. People doing a lot of soloing is not strange at all to me after playing SWG for a few years back in the day, it was very common in that game.
Yet it was also very social. That's why I find these types of statements to be so odd. As I've never been forced into a feeling of this being such a black and white issue with no grey area.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
There's no more danger while running through zones.
I remember the first time i tried to run from San d'oria to Jeuno in FFXI. I decided to do it at night, which meant more dangerous mobs, and was met with death after death until i teamed up with some folks.
Comments
Honestly its us players. No matter what we get, its not what we want. We don't give the Developers any room. Within ten minutes of release we declare everything DoA and follow the crowd to quitsville. We're quick to blame the faceless "Them" that we imagine hides behind the curtain and steers each game down certain paths.
In the end we're to blame. We're responsible for our own fun and I've played many games that were "dead" according to the players that were, in fact, fun games if you let them be what they were designed to be instead of wishing they were "X, Y or Z" game.
You've got to admit that we geeks are a tough and opinionated audience.
Many a small thing has been made large by the right kind of advertising.
I agree with you , old MMORPG may be crap with many wrong design decision ,
but they have many things that make them true MMO and good RPG , things that nowadays MMORPG lacked.
"true" MMO is not desirable to me. I would much prefer modern more game-like MMOs.
My biggest complaints? They don't go far enough to incorporate good SP type solo content into instances.
And now that they have, we have thread after thread after thread of players asking "Where did it all go wrong?"
My biggest complain is the difficulty, most MMOs now have at least 90% very easy content. I rarely get challenged before getting a bit into the endgame anymore which means I have to play a months tutorial to get to the interesting stuff. I don't mean that all MMOs should be hard but a few could at least be challenging.
My second largest complaint would be that the games have lost contact with the pen and paper roots, the early MMOs were made by P&P players and tried to recapture some of that experience but today that is all lost which is sad because there is still so much MMOs can learn from those games.
Is that evidence that they've done something wrong or that more people who are dissatisfied are complaining in the same places ?
As a "culture", we gamers tend to not really know what the hell we want. Sure as individuals we have our personal wishlists for mmos, but as a community on the whole we tend to piss and moan about everything.
We rip on games for being the same. When someone tries to do something different, we rip on them for not following the formula. We want B2P, but don't want a reason to purchase stuff in a cash shop. We hate grinding, but we also whine when we accomplish goals too quickly. Leveling takes too long, leveling is too short. We want endgame, but we don't want an endless gear grind, yet we want some mythical progression that doesn't involve gearing to be more powerful (options are limited).
It's no wonder developers can't seem to make any game "right", because we want everything and nothing all at the same time. Anyone wanting to make a mmo needs to have their head checked, because dealing with such a bi-polar community is pure and utter insanity.
Honestly, if anyone wants to enjoy a game anymore, the number 1 rule is to avoid any and all forums from said game.
I think having more freedom is essential in an MMO for me and sadly, I've lost that sense of wonder and freedom in most MMOs. Perhaps the shine has worn off for me long ago but I'm seeking a really open sandbox type of game where I can explore, craft until my fingers bleed, own my own little house somewhere, farm, fish, collect, work on a list of achievements, etc. Having played Asheron's Call as my first MMO, I miss that huge land mass where each play session was an adventure. My husband and I would pick a direction and head out to explore and mob hunt. And of course look for those precious SIK keys! I remember working for months acquiring the necessary components for my Greater Shadow Armor. When I finally put it together, what a great feeling of accomplishment. I also miss our tight knit community. Our guild would do so much together and it seemed like a little family to me. Asheron's Call could be a grindy game since the level cap was so high. However, we wasted many hours grinding and socializing. Heard the same thing about EQ.
Several games have really pulled me in over the years but I find that each title gives me less and less wonder. Everyone seems to be doing their own quest chains and at times, there is very little stop to smell the roses. Or just talk. Now if I get into a queue to do a dungeon, people complete the objective and poof....they leave. Some other games are worse with speed runs. In FFXIV:AAR, if you didn't complete your speed run in 10 minutes, you would be cussed at or insulted. Woe to you if you had not watched a YouTube video of each encounter. I believe at as gamers, folks have become much more antisocial and impatient.
Not sure if anything out there will capture the spirit of the older MMOs. Sure, there were many things about the older MMO that were inconvenient and would drive today's player nuts. But they sure had their appeal and I played some of the older MMOs far longer than the newer ones.
That in just about every MMO that has been released in the last decade that I've played, you are always moving at 100 mph, and you move through the game so quickly that you never get any time to sit back and enjoy your surroundings.
Tying closely in with that, the game worlds are simply designed as a vessel for the content, rather than trying to design an interesting world. In nearly every modern MMO, there is not a square inch of game space that is not used for some quest it seems like, and this makes the worlds boring.
None of the game systems encourage socializing or grouping with strangers.
Whether its instancing, small scale scripted raiding, quest based leveling (fuck that), or cut scenes, none of them simulate a virtual world, and all the gameplay mechanics actively work to discourage people from playing together.
That, and they all treat you like you're a 3 year old with a brain tumor.
^ this!
I also think that MMOs should encourage group play and community, which many modern day MMOs fail to do and in fact discourage it. I remember in vanilla WoW no matter when you logged into my guilds vent server even if there were no guild events going on there would be 15 + people just hanging out in vent while they quested, did PvP, gathered etc. You don't see this often anymore, now it's log into vent for raid/guild PvP, log off the second it's over.
WoW was the beginning of the end for socializing. It's gameplay actively discouraged people from playing together unless they were a part of a preestablished clique or guild. WoW still had some leftover socializing from pre WoW MMOs and people getting into MMOs for the first time and wanting to talk to all the people around them. But that quickly went away, as the game forced people into raid guilds and instances and solo quest grinding.
There was almost no reason to actually group or interact with strangers in WoW, so people didn't do it. Or if a random group quest FORCED you to be with some stranger, you left that group as soon as the quest was done and never talked again.
I'm always shocked when people remember WOW as being social. But I guess that's what happens when WoW's your first MMO and you have nothing else to compare it to.
When you say that "games are so focused on....storyline" you have to be kidding. The storylines are jokes. Bad stories implemented badly. Just because they are bad stories doesn't mean stories shouldn't be in MMOs.
The #1 complaint about modern MMOs that I have is their efficiency and need for more content all the time.
Some of the stories are beautifully written. The problem is, no matter how well written, it isn't going to be anywhere near as good as a singleplayer game.
Unless you do what SWTOR did, dedicate all your time and money into making your MMO NOT feel like an MMO. And at the end of the day, SWTOR is still just a shitty version of KOTOR.
The only stories MMOs can tell well are simulated world stories, meaning tons of players getting involved, or little things you stumble across. You can't make a singleplayer feel like the sole hero without shattering the illusion.
Scripted linear stories are NOT meant for MMOs. Everything that has tried to put them in there has just hurt the genre.
Vanilla WoW was still very much group oriented it wasn't until late TBC where they started removing a good portion of mandatory group quests.
I am not sure what games you played pre-wow but guilds/clans always have played an important part of MMOs. I played Shadowbane and if you weren't in a large PvP guild you were a moving target.
SWTOR had a terrible story and was a terrible MMO. That's no argument against MMOs having good stories. A story doesn't have to have you be the sole hero.
The difference is, in most pre WOW MMOs the grouping and socliazing was as much with random strangers as it was with guilds.
You didn't have forced group quests making you group with people. You had all the aspects of the game design encouraging you to group up organically.
That's why grouping died fast in WoW, because the game's design discouraged you to interact with random strangers, and every now and again FORCED you to, which just made people anti social.
My only real complaint about games today is on a payment level, as well as the idea that a game that offers 100's of hours of game-play, isn't worth the money.
I like my games to cost a flat fee, it keeps development simple, it makes the experience simple, pay or don't play. In-game life is much better IMO as it's all there to be earned. Buying something off of a cs feels like entering a cheat code to me. CS's also entice devs to place the "cool" stuff behind such paywalls, otherwise no one would pay for anything.
Other than that I have no real complaints, plenty of sandbox games in development, I've been able to find at least one game at any given time I enjoy 02 DAOC, in 03 it was SWG, after that it was AOC after that it was TOR, now it's ESO. Coming up I'll have plenty of sandbox options to find the one for me.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
^ this is what I am talking about. In MMOs lore, setting, and back story are extremely important but following a linear in depth storyline (i.e. GW2, ESO, SW:ToR) makes the game feel like a single player RPG by setting people on a strict path that you follow to progress, only the mood is killed when the fate of the world rests on your shoulders and your shoulders alone to kill said creature or complete said ritual and there are 15 other people doing it next to you.
IMO what made the early MMOs so immersive was the fact that they gave you a sense of what was going on, some general direction and an awesome fantasy environment to do what you wanted in it.
Again, just because terrible games have done stories terribly doesn't mean that stories are a bad idea for MMOs
They only thing old MMORPGs gave you back in the day was something new and shiny. It's been years since you played the first few MMORPGS, the novelty has warned off and you basically become bitter that you can't get that feeling again. It's time to look for a new genre to get that feeling again yo and stop blaming the games. The older games was not any more immersive then any other games that came after it. It's the same tired argument with anything. Movies were better back then, music was better back then, etc etc. You name it, people will say it was better back then but in actuality, they are not. People need to just let it go and enjoy the present because alot of things in the present is just as good or better then what came before it.
Life in game doesn't feel much different to me than it did in SWG back in 03. The only real difference is I have something to do outside of playing with friends and making my own game. Which I can still do, at least in the Themeparks I have enjoyed. That's why I enjoyed them, they stroked an immersive itch, those I named above.
Currently I find ESO to be a very Immersive experience. More so than any since SWG for me. Especially in Cyrodil, I have a blast there and I'm only level 19. Be it soloing or in a group, I find it to be very similar to what I did in SWG. People doing a lot of soloing is not strange at all to me after playing SWG for a few years back in the day, it was very common in that game.
Yet it was also very social. That's why I find these types of statements to be so odd. As I've never been forced into a feeling of this being such a black and white issue with no grey area.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
There's no more danger while running through zones.
I remember the first time i tried to run from San d'oria to Jeuno in FFXI. I decided to do it at night, which meant more dangerous mobs, and was met with death after death until i teamed up with some folks.
I miss that aspect.